Chocolate orange truffles!

Oh my, I have been slack with this blog, haven't I?! It's been over a year since I last wrote, oops. In part, that's because I have been eating lots of crap and not making any exciting  and new raw stuff. And also because I have been lazy :/ But no more! I made loads of tasty raw delights at the weekend and so I'm going to update you with some new recipes.

The most delicious thing I invented on Saturday were: raw chocolate orange truffles.

They are so quick and easy to make and one of the most delicious raw sweets I've made.

Put 1 cup of cashews, soaked for for 2-3 hours, in the food processor with 1/2 cup of dates. Process these until they start to stick together. Then add 1/4 cup of raw cacao powder and the zest and juice of half an orange. (This is the amount I used because I had half an orange leftover in the fridge! You could use more or less, experiment to taste.) Process it all some more- it will start sticking together and going into a ball. Taste the mixture- you might want to add a squirt of agave if you like them sweeter. 
Then just take out spoonfuls of the mixture and roll it gently into balls in your hand. Put them in a container and into the freezer to set. They'll be ready in about half an hour, if you can wait that long!

Then keep them in the freezer! You don't need to put them back into the fridge to keep, eat them straight from the freezer, the texture is amazing! They're still soft, not hard at all, and don't seem 'frozen' but it gives them a lovely creamy texture. And they have a very rich taste. Enjoy! More recipes to follow :)

Raw caramel apple pie

I took this pic with my phone
before the caramel had set so it
looks a bit rubbish!

Ok, this isn't my own recipe, but it's so delicious I had to share it. I got it here, from the one green planet blog. The author of that does another really good blog too, Raw on $10 a day (or less!) which has loads of great recipes and tips for being raw on a budget.

The pie has a base of walnuts and raisins- except I used a combination of raisins and dates in my version (just because I didn't have enough raisins!)- ground up together, pressed into a dish, then left to chill in the freezer. The apple filling is sliced apples, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (this was what I used instead of pumpkin pie spice as I don't think you can get that in the UK), lemon juice and agave, mixed up and softened in the dehydrator for a couple of hours (you could skip this step if you don't have a dehydrator). Then the caramel sauce is raw almond butter, agave, water and olive oil blended together and poured over the apple mix which you spread over the base. It's so gorgeous I just had a fat slice for breakfast. I recommend this recipe LOADS, and really you only need a little slice as it's really rich... although having said that I just had a pretty massive slice and am already contemplating another... Well, why not, it's all healthy, raw and good for you... enjoy!

Mastercleansing again

Well, so much for my last post all about moderation... I've just returned from a week in France where I ate LOADS of cooked food, including plenty of dairy and wheat- pizza, quiche, pasta etc!- and loads of wine and cheese. Hmmm. In my defence, it is pretty impossible to eat out raw in rural France- it's hard enough to get vegetarian meals, let alone vegan, everything has cheese in it! So I decided to just go with it for the week and reset myself when I got back. I did make a green smoothie for my breakfast every day while I was out there... oh, except for two days when I had croissants, ahem.

Now I'm back and my tummy has definitely expanded so I'm back on the mastercleanse. I've explained loads about this before in this blog, I journalled the last time I went on it, so do look at my other posts if you're interested in more details. So far I'm starving but it's only the first day! However I wasn't in work today, and now have a weekend ahead, so hopefully will be in the swing of things by the time I go back to work (which I am DREADING by the way...)

Also, need to get back into exercising. Too broke for Bikram this month so am going to start doing another 30 day challenge with the EA Active personal trainer on the Wii, starting in the morning. Wish me luck!

I also have another colonic booked for tomorrow. Not sure how that will go after a week of stuffing myself (oh, and I also had crisps, pretzels, biscuits and crackers in France... did I mention that?). But hopefully it will all help in resetting my system. Heaven knows I need a reboot!

Onion bread, kale chips, aubergine bacon and chocolatey bites

Hello! I haven't written this blog for ages and decided it was time to get blogging again. I've been kind of on and off the raw food over the last few months and have come to a few realisations. The main one being I absolutely definitely feel better when I am eating raw. I have more energy, I'm more positive, productive, and generally feel happier and healthier. The change from when I'm eating rubbish food and drinking alcohol is immense. But I have learnt not to be too hard on myself and take it easy when things don't go to plan.

Aubergine bacon, recipe below

I've noticed a lot of raw foodists lately, who used to go on about being 100% raw now referring to themselves as "high raw". And I'm kind of doing the same. I think as long as the bulk of my diet is raw, say 80-90 %, I am not going to beat myself up about the remaining 10-20% that may be cooked foods. I am still remaining vegan, and the funny thing is, since I have "allowed" myself this, I have actually been pretty much totally raw! I think I have finally discovered moderation! Instead of grabbing a bag of crisps when there is nothing tasty and raw around and then saying "ah sod it, I may as well eat crap all day now", and then getting chocolate, a sandwich, a glass of wine, biscuits etc, and then getting on that whole stuff-your-face-with-junk merry go round again, if I now allow myself the odd "bad" thing and carry on with my mainly raw diet it all works out fine!

 The only thing I am keeping off though is the wine- when I drink booze I really do loose all sense of moderation and that is when stuffing my face with junk takes control! So I am remaining off the booze for the time being. And the more raw food I eat, without feeling like I'm being strict on myself, the less cooked food I want to eat. I have only eaten raw for the last week as though I told myself I could eat cooked stuff too I actually haven't wanted to. And with my extra energy I have been making loads of raw treats- this is another key thing, make sure you are prepared and have plenty of treats around so you're not left with only a salad or something as a choice.



Onion bread



 I just made a double batch of Matt Amsden's onion bread from Rawvolution, I had forgotten just how good this was. Rawvolution was the first raw food book I got and it's also my favourite raw food restaurant in LA. And this bread is so easy to make, it only has 5 ingredients, and I swear my batch came out just as tasty as the bread I had at his place in LA, if I say so myself! It takes ages to dehydrate though, so make sure you make it in advance (36 hrs in the dehydrator total) but the actual making of it is so simple: you just grind sunflower seeds and flaxseeds, slice onions, then mix it all up with olive oil and tamari (or nama shoyu if you can get it, or braggs or another equivalent). Then spread the mix over dehydrator sheets. Then wait, while the smell of it cooking tempts you to eat it out of the dehydrator before it's done! (or is that just me... I am greedy!)



Chocolatey bites

 I also invented some lovely chocolatey bites, that are so simple to make. I soaked 1 cup of cashew nuts for an hour then put them in the food processor with a cup of chopped dates, 2 tablespoons of raw cacao powder and 1 tablespoon of mesquite. Process it til starts to come together, then shape into mouthful sized cookie shapes (or whatever shape takes your fancy!) and put in the fridge. That's it! And they are delicious.

I also made another batch of bacon out of aubergine (photo at top of page), I've put the recipe on here before, but you can find it here. I love this stuff, it's really crispy and full of flavour. I didn't have any chipotle so I used smoked paprika and chilli which worked really well. The marinade for the aubergine is amazing- I've also used it on kale chips and in salad dressing!

Talking of kale chips, my love affair with them continues. These are the things that I could not do without and keep me away from crisps as they taste just as good! I've put enough recipes for kale chips on here, but experiment and invent your own. The farmers markets in Brixton and Swiss Cottage have some amazing kinds of organic kale, there's a purple one I love and some Tuscan kale with massive leaves that's great too. I've also been getting neon chard from them which is beautiful and great for smoothies. I did a green smoothie detox last month which was great, and I have continued with green smoothies for breakfast each day, a great start to the morning. A couple of bananas, then any other fruit- mango, papaya, pineapple, raspberries, strawberries, peaches etc, they're all good! Then add some water, and maybe some maca, mesquite, purple corn or whatever superfood you're into and a couple of handfuls of greens and you're good to go.

Well, I'm glad to be back, I'll be back soon with more raw food stuff. I've been making some skin care products too so might let you know a bit about these too. Bye for now x

Raw chocolates!

My new favourite thing= homemade raw chocolates. They are so quick and easy to make and completely delicious.

All you do is put 100g of raw cacao butter in a glass bowl, on top of another glass bowl filled with hot water, and melt it down to liquid. Then whisk in 6 tablespoons of raw cacao powder (I use a 1/3 cup measure and a 10ml measure). Use a metal whisk, it gets it all mixed up better than a spoon. Then add 2 tablespoons of agave nectar and about half a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Then you can add whatever you like as flavourings really. The batch I knocked up last night I put mesquite and lucuma in and they are really good! I've got a bit of a thing for mesquite at the moment, it's so gorgeous, I put it in my smoothie this morning too!

I've made them with a few drops of rosewater in before too- they were good- a bit turkish delighty tasting. But you could add orange, mint, chopped nuts, goji berries... whatever takes your fancy! I bought a silicone mould to make them in but you can easily make them in an ice cube tray.

I have also used the leftover melted chocolate to dip some raw ginger flapjack biscuits I made in, and they turned out great. I got the biscuit recipe here, they call them ginger oat cookies, they were lovely as they were, but massively improved by being chocolate coated!

Raw crackers, tapenade and sundried tomato cheeze

Okay, so these don't look all that appetising but I blame my phone! My battery charger has packed up so can't use my camera til I get some new batteries. And these crackers are also very messy looking and free-form because I just snapped the big sheets of dehydrated cracker into random bits to make the crackers! But they taste so good, and are very addictive.


So first things first, the crackers. I based these on Kate Magic's recipe for Crackables, which you can find on her website, with a few additions. Basically, soak 250g of flaxseeds in a litre of water for 12 hours until you get a gloopy mixture. To this add the juice of 2 lemons, a couple of spoons of green powder, and a chopped red onion. Then I also added 1/2 red and 1/2 green pepper, chopped, 1 red chilli, a few grinds of black pepper and a pinch of salt. You can vary this recipe and add what you like really, fresh herbs are especially good. Mix this all up well, spread over 3 dehydrator trays with teflex sheets on, and dehydrate at 105 degrees for 12 hours. Then flip them over and dehydrate for another 6 hours or until crispy. Then break them up into bits like me- or try and make nicer proper square cracker shapes if you can!


Tapenade
This is scrumptious! I got this recipe from a girl called Natasha at a raw food meetup, and she got it from Cafe Gratitude (San Francisco), it's official name is 'I Am Opulent' Olive Tapenade and is my new addiction. It's totally delicious. Although, she put a bunch of fresh coriander in hers, and I didn't have any so missed that out. All you do is blend together a jar of raw olives- I used these Raw Health organic kalamata olives which are divine- with a red chilli, a clove of garlic and enough of the olive oil from the jar to create a smooth mixture- but not too smooth, I like it with a few little olive chunks in. Simple but beautiful, really fresh and succulent tasting, with a spicy chilli kick. It's also really good spread on romaine lettuce leaves with mashed avocado and rolled up.
The sundried tomato cheeze is my old favourite from Ani Phyo's recipe in Ani's Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable Living Foods Recipes and is made with brazil nuts, lemon juice, garlic, water, sea salt and sundried tomatoes. Another really easy one but very flavoursome and moreish.

Key Lime Pie

I've been wanting to make some kind of lime tart for a couple of weeks and finally got round to it yesterday. I have to say, it was delicious, I think it's the tastiest raw dish I've made so far. I've already eaten half the pie! I first started thinking about it at a raw food potluck meetup at Heleana's place a couple of weeks ago, where one of the guests brought her lime pie and was kind enough to provide the recipe later. I then found a different recipe in Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People, Jennifer Cornbleet's book which also sounded good. So in the end, I took the best bits out of each recipe, changed some things, added some new twists of my own and came up with this recipe. If you only make one raw dessert, make this, it's amazing, you would never know it was raw, and actually healthy! It tastes indulgent, rich, sharp and sweet, and the crunchy base is a great contrast to the smooth zestiness of the lime mousse.

Base:
1/2 cup macademia nuts
1/2 cup hazelnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
Pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup medjool dates
1 capful natural vanilla extract

Put it all the food processor and mix together until nuts are coursely ground (it's nice if they're still a bit chunky) and the mixture is starting to stick together.
Press it down firmly in a flan dish and put it in the freezer or fridge to chill while you're making the filling.

Lime mousse:
1 1/2 cups mashed avocado ( about three- I used two massive ones and one little one)
1/2 cup sweetener of your choice (I used a combo of half raw honey and half agave nectar)
Fresh lime juice- I started with 1/4 cup then upped it to almost 1/2 cup, but anywhere in between these amounts would be fine, depending on how sweet or tart you like it- taste it and see!)
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 capful natural vanilla extract

Blend all this up until smooth, then pour it over the base, smooth over wit the back of a spoon and leave to set in the fridge for about an hour before serving.

I decorated it with some lime slices too. Then enjoy! x